India’s VIP culture

If you thought dirty public toilets inhabited by dogs are something only Indian citizens have to put up with, think again! Reports of chefs-de-mission of international sporting teams being greeted by filthy flats in the newly-built Commonwealth Games Village (which the organising committee chairman Kalmadi claims is world-class) prove that the malaise extends all over.

What is even more shocking is that no official involved with the Commonwealth Games bothered to check out the rooms in the Village before showing them to the heads of international teams participating in the event which will begin on October 3. Even the owner of the humblest house in India will check out whether the toilet is clean and working before taking a prospective tenant around!

The problem is that public money is everyone's money and, therefore, no one's money! And so what if the nation's top bureaucrat—the Cabinet Secretary—is supposed to be co-ordinating on behalf of the Government of India with the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (CGOC) headed by Kalmadi. And so what if we have been told that the expenditure of thousands of crores of rupees on the Commonwealth Games is justified since hosting the event is a national commitment which has to be honoured.

And so what if, in its inimitable style, the Manmohan Singh government has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to ensure that the Commonwealth Games goes on without a hitch!

The malaise is not just confined to the Commonwealth Games Village. Take last Sunday's shoot-out outside Delhi's historic Jama Masjid where two Taiwanese tourists were seriously injured in what was supposed to be a high-security zone. After a previous incident outside the Jama Masjid, there had been official assurances that CCTV and metal-detectors would be installed outside all the entrances. However, within a few hours after last Sunday's attack, there were media reports stating that neither the CCTV nor the metal-detectors were functional and that the Jama Masjid's Imam Bukhari had complained about this to the Prime Minister's Office and the home ministry.

The problem in India is that there is no culture of accountability. What we have instead is a VIP culture where postings and promotions are determined on the basis of the bureaucrat's proximity to the nearest centre of power. And so the bureaucrat goes all out to ingratiate himself with the nearest VIP. If there had been even a semblance of accountability, some official somewhere would have been punished for the failures of omission and commission which facilitated the mess on the Commonwealth Games front or last Sunday's shoot-out.

Instead, India's urban development minister and the CGOC term as a minor incident the collapse last Tuesday of the main stadium overbridge in which five workers were seriously injured. The CGOC top brass also adds that construction-workers used the Village toilets and "dirtied them". Surely, those who oversee construction could have organised temporary toilets since even aam-aadmi workers have to answer the call of nature.

Perhaps India's UPA-coalition government will launch a country-wide scheme named after a national leader to ensure that construction-workers have toilets to use while on the job. That could be the only permanent benefit to accrue from hosting the Commonwealth Games!